I think the Norwich City game showed how important one game can be in a season. I had already started writing a piece on ‘if West Ham will be fighting relegation come the end of the season.’ The main point I was making was how important it was that we beat Norwich at Upton Park.
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Before the game yesterday I felt that if we didn’t win I would start to feel increasingly worried that we could be pulled right down there with the likes of Southampton, Reading and Aston Villa. It is extremely strange because if somebody had said to me at the beginning of the season that West Ham would be 12th in the league with 23 points going into 20143 I would have been absolutely delighted. But after recent weeks I had started to become quite worried and very wary that we don’t have a natural goal scorer in our squad.
Last week’s performance against Reading was just not good enough and teams like them and Norwich are the teams that we need to beat. It was great to see that the whole squad responded extremely well and put in a great performance yesterday. We totally deserved the victory and played some really nice football at times. Despite this it showed once again that we don’t have the sort of quality upfront to go further in the Premier League. I still feel we don’t have any cutting edge in the team and especially the strikers. Carlton Cole and Andy Carroll are our two main strikers and between them they have only got three goals so far this season
I really feel we need to do some business in the January transfer window and a striker should be our top priority. I don’t mean a striker like Carroll or Cole we need a totally different player. Somebody who is small, quick and can score goals is exactly what we need. We have been linked with Nicolas Anelka and rumours were he was at the game yesterday. I just hope he is actually up for the challenge and isn’t just signing for one final pay off. We have had quite a few strikers like that in the past and I really don’t want him to be another one. If Big Sam can get the best out of him like he did at Bolton Wanderers he could prove to be a great signing and get us the goals that we need.
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I wouldn’t like to say that we won’t be in a relegation battle come the end of the season as Sam Allardyce has great experience not only of the Premier League but of keeping teams in this league. I personally hope that he uses this experience to tell the owners that he needs to bring two or three players in in the January transfer window.
His transfer business in the summer was shocking besides Diame. Carroll is a complete waste of money on the wage bill as Cole does the lone striker job just as well. We need to start playing with 2 strikers or 4-3-3. People talk about Nolan’s goals but if he was out of the team and someone like J.Cole was in his place we would have a much better, more skillfull and more creative player and we would have a chance of getting a regular goal scorer. Matt Jarvis was a complete waste of 10 million so I hope Big Sam continues in January to make some good signings. Joe Cole has been a good start. I have been disappointed with Big Sam so far this season, we have just been too negative against teams we should be confident against, with Reading being a prime example. Our league position currently is where we should easily be with our squad and if Sam picked the right team and used the right tactics we would easily be top 10. I will be happy as long as we stay up but Big Sam needs to be more confident and be more positive tactically.
First of all, very cool to see a photo of Mr. Samasi Abouuuuuu. May have spelled the name wrong, but its been awhile. Can anybody help me recall which game it was that he touched the ref and got sent off? League Cup, perhaps? I was a bit polluted at the time in my Manhattan local, McCormacks, and dont recall.
Anyway, with 26 points we probably only need 12 more to stay up. Only one season since we went down with 42 has a team with 40 gone down. Average for 17th has been about 38. And I don’t agree with Hugh above regarding Sam. Yes, against Reading he likely could have sent out a more positive team and not been punished for it. But as Sam says, at the start of the year we would gladly have taken 26 points at this stage. And Sam deserves a lot of credit for that. He has NEVER been relegated as a manager. That is one impressive stat considering where he has been.